


Impossible

by infinite_regress



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, FIx It, Fluff, Marriage Proposal, Post-Episode: s09e12 Hell Bent, Romance, work round
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 17:48:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8023297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infinite_regress/pseuds/infinite_regress
Summary: I apologise in advance for any feel this fic might cause you.So sorry, not sorry.





	Impossible

 

At the edge of eternity, in the crack between dimensions there is a planet where the winds are fair and the sky silver, and on that planet is a lake. It’s a lake of broken promises and last wishes, of and hearts shattered and stolen dreams. It’s more of a mirror than a lake, but it reflects not your own image, but the one you’ve lost. And the saying goes, for those who believe such nonsense, that once in a billion years, if you sit by the lake when the twin moons are high, and the arcadia flower is in full bloom and spills its fragrance into the night air, well, they say that on such a night, anything is possible.

Of course, the travellers who sit by the lake never really expect anything to happen, but once in a hundred years, or a thousand, who knows, and who can keep count anyway, they still visit the lake and dream. They sit, each solitary, alone, never knowing the other has sat in this very same spot, and they each look into the lake. And they speak, so they think, with the other’s image, to a memory, a mirage, a projection of their subconscious, perhaps.

She looked at the image in the lake, and told him the same things she had told his reflection many times, variations of the same song over the years, through a veil of sadness, anger, tears, confusion, and lately, a lingering haze of regret, tempered with a sad smile.

“You were impossible from the start. From the day you bumbled into my life, to the day you left it, you had my heart. All of time and space in that magic box, and all I ever wanted to hear was ‘I love you.’ I’d have married you, you know. If you’d asked me.” She looked at the double moons high above her, and wondered where he was, who he was with, and if he ever thought of her at all.

#

He settled himself by the lake. He came here when the loneliness got too much to bear, or the weight of the universe hung heavy on his shoulders. Tonight was such a night, and he sat, with the scent of the arcadia blossom in the air, and he wondered where she was, if she was happy, and if she ever thought of him. He smiled at her image in the lake.

“You were impossible. Your eyes confused me. You were so bold, and brave. You held me to account. You made a better man of me." A sadness gripped him. "I fear I let you down.” That smile, he so often wondered, did it mean more? He sighed. “I remember what you told me in the cloisters.”

He heard her voice, distant, and echo, a memory, a wish, he could never tell. “I’d have married you, you know. If you’d asked me.”

He knew she was a mirage, but he answered her all the same. He always answered her. “Well, as you know, I am an idiot. I remembered everything. Not long after, really. That business at Colehill School shook the memory block out of me.”

She gasped. “Why did you never come find me?”

He closed his eyes. “Well, as you know, I’m an Idiot. I’m sorry.”

#

The night was a velvet dream, studded with a million diamonds in the darkness, and the air was as heavy as she’d ever known it here. The silver moons were flecked with gold tonight.

Her voice cracked. “You know, they say the tears of a Time Lord can bring you home.”

She heard the faintest of sounds, felt time ripple and diverge around her. His image in the lake was clear and true, but his eyes were heavy and red. A tear splashed into the lake.

And that was all wrong, because the man in the lake was an image, there should be no tears splashing into the lake.

A rustle beside her.

She kept her eyes fixed on the water, staring at his image, because this was too cruel. But she could smell the familiar scent of him, sandalwood and stardust, as vividly as if it was yesterday they had stepped out of the second most beautiful garden in the universe, laughing and holding hands. This wasn’t funny at all. Still she stared ahead.

A cool hand slipped into hers. The eddies of time swamped her. She blinked as tears spilled down her cheeks. “You are impossible,” she said in a broken voice.

“I’m the Doctor. Just accept it.”

She turned then, and there he was, his curls still silver, eyes like the sea after a storm, he was here, living and breathing in front of her.

He pulled her close, and whispered in to her ear, “Would you? Marry me, in whatever time we have. Will you marry me?”

“Am I dreaming?”

“Does this feel like a dream to you?” He kissed her, crushing away her doubt, holding her as close as ever he had. Not a dream. Something else, maybe. But whatever it was, she’d take it.

“Yes I will. I will marry you,” she said. “Let’s just run away together, you and me, and never stop,” she said breathlessly.

He laughed gently, and said to her and the universe at large, “Just the Doctor and Clara Oswald, in a story that never ends.” He pulled her close and kissed her again.

His kiss swept her away, through time, across space, nothing mattered any more, now he was in her arms again. “Let’s make it a good one,” she said, and knew, as much as she’d ever known anything, that _this_ was how their story should end.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was my birthday present to myself; how it should have been...
> 
> Follow me on tumblr for Doctor Who, scifi and writing. https://www.tumblr.com/blog/infiniteregress17


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